Reflections on climate discussions in the blogosphere between Keith, Lucia and me, part 2: The role of blogs

Keith Kloor has posted part 2 of the conversation we had with the three of us (i.e. him, Lucia and me). The topic of discussion here is the role of blogs in fostering reasoned discussion (or rather staunch debate, see e.g. Bob Grumbine’s discussion of the difference). This one is much shorter than part 1.

Basically, I think blogs are conducive to a more polarized debate, partly because the anonymity of the internet.

A related point (not discussed with Lucia and Keith) is how the blogosphere differs from the science-sphere. Grumbine had some very good insights into that, retold here. On the internet, anyone can say anything; there’s no quality control, no gatekeeping. Depending on your viewpoint, that may be a good or a bad thing, compared to science. I tend to think though that your best bet to learn science is from scientists.

89 Responses to “Reflections on climate discussions in the blogosphere between Keith, Lucia and me, part 2: The role of blogs”

In “Bridging the climate divide”, you asserted that environment, economics and security are less compelling reasons for action than is climate. Recent events reinforce how compelling environment is and how more immediate.

Environmental reasons for energy transformation predate concerns about climate, are more easily demonstrated and lead to policies more easily implemented.

Using climate as the basis for policy has proven to be a hindrance to action. The result is twenty years of lost opportunity and nothing but endless talk into the future. There must be another way.

PK, you’ll need to start with explaining why it is that the other non-climate reasons for getting off of fossil fuels have made relatively little progress. Note that this conundrum has been around for longer than widespread concern about climate, and is perhaps exemplified by Ronald Reagan’s order removing Jimmy Carter’s solar panels from the White House roof in 1981.

I would suggest to you that the basic answer is that the needed changes are being blocked by a) the ordinary human resistance to change, especially since there exists a perception that the change will involve something other than a continued indefintite expansion of materially profligate lifestyles, and b) very powerful institutions that like things just the way they are. You would then have to make a case how removing climate from the mix of reasons for change is going to help. Another problem you would have to deal with is why removing climate from the mix wouldn’t lead to a massive increase in burning coal and unconventional fossil fuels since those would be a big help on the peak oil/gas, national security and balance-of-payment fronts.

The failure to address these issues is the fundamental flaw in the Breakthrough/Hartwell approach, BTW.

Explaining why it is that the other non-climate reasons for getting off of fossil fuels have made relatively little progress: A lot of progress has been made in public opinion. The relatively little progress in policy has happened while climate has been the primary reason.

Note the billions of government and international organization dollars and the uncountable manhours dedicated to investigating and promoting the dangers of AGW rather than on actual energy transformation. How much more confirmation of AGW do you need?

We are only just now on the doorstep of having the technology to accomplish the transformation. The number one impediment is the high cost of deployment versus the time it takes to break even.

Changing the basis for action to environment/economics results in subtle but important differences in policy. More after dinner.

Needs some evidence: “A lot of progress has been made in public opinion. The relatively little progress in policy has happened while climate has been the primary reason.” It also has a correlation/causation problem.

Oddly TF fails to note that Joe Romm covers that area extensively. And of course there is rather a lot of good news, on both the research and development as well as the deployment fronts, but I might as well be a party pooper and point out that the initial increments are the easy ones. We’re not even close to on track for peak emissions in 2015-2020 per the Copenhagen Diagnosis call, let alone the massive reduction needed by 2050.

Also, technically PK did say progress on policy, although I think even there progress has been considerable.

That is heartening news. Not to be a spoil sport, but advise caution about making generalizations based on two or three data points. Also, it is somewhat disconcerting that global CO2 levels increased by over 2 ppm per year in between 2009 and 2010. That is perhaps because 2.6% is a fraction of a very big number– so we are clearly still emitting more CO2 than can be sequestered by the oceans and vegetation. Also of concern is that after taking a brief hiatus, CH4 has started to rise again, but only a few data points, let us hope it is just a blip.

Maple Leaf, instead of gossiping over at Deltoid with the dhogaza who called me a stinking, lying sack of shit and misrepresenting what I say here with this comment, “You should read what Fuller and Mosher are saying over at Bart Verheggen’s place. Claiming that BAU is what will actually help us reduce emissions, not a global agreement. Yes, you did read that right.” Why don’t you speak with me about it here?

The business as usual I refer to is not at all the business as usual you normally speak of, and I thought I made that clear. Do you have questions about it?

With the past two days you have called me an ‘opportunist,’ asked for someone to file a complaint against me, called me a troll, accused me of not having any journalist credentials, called me unethical, said I was deceiving people, and called me a world class liar.

Now you come over here and act all prim and dainty, like a nice person.

I agree that scientists are the best bet to learn science from. This is one of the reasons I enjoy peer reviewing papers. This insures I really learn the material not just skim it for what may be interesting. The interesting part usually only emerges after a close reading of the paper. This most interesting and valuable portion will seldom make it into the press release in a way that is sufficiently explained to be useful.

You do seem intent on distracting from inconvenient truths being raised here. Sorry, but I can’t let your post go unchecked. Actually, that was a test (I wanted to see what you would do with all the content of that post) and you just failed. Note how I, in that very same post at Deltoid which you cherry-picked from, condemned the violent rhetoric used by some– yes, I was actually defending you, funny how you failed to mention that here. I also said earlier on this blog that I still stand by what I said at Deltoid, although I would not repeat the said allegations here b/c there is not context; but surprise, surprise you did just that. Bart is trying to engage you in good faith– something I strongly suspect he will soon regret, if not already.

Anyhow, here I am yet again trying to engage you as politely as possible, and believe me it requires much effort (so please forgive me when I fail) and TIME, the latter of which I do not really have (as I noted last night). Anyhow, sooner or later your musings bely your true intentions and reveal your true unflattering colours and people lose their patience with you. Your posts here and Deltoid and elsewhere are no different.

Your “definition” of BAU is, as I understand it, fanciful, poorly thought out and explained– so yes, perhaps you need to elaborate and enlighten the mignons. Also, you cannot use the term “BAU”, that term is firmly entrenched in the literature and clearly does not have the same meaning and implications in the minds of policy makers and ordinary people as your definition does. So please find a new phrase/term to describe your concept to avoid confusion.

My point, and that made by others, is that (traditional) BAU will not work, it did not work for CFC, SO2 or CAFE standards. As Mark B pointed out local groups, states and even some countries are going it alone on reducing GHGs and that is great, but alas, that is simply not going to be enough. The reason for me citing the MP and Acid Rain Program was to demonstrate that CFCs and SO2 were not reduced with BAU, or by companies doing so on their own accord or out of the goodness of their hearts, they needed a push and some guidelines. The MP was a formal agreement with a timeline, targets and compliance requirements, and reducing global CO2 emissions will require its own formal framework. As someone who frequently talks with economists working for the oil patch (funny how I have more respect for them than I do for you), companies like to have some orderly framework or agreement in place. It helps them plan, it helps them run their econometric models, it helps them make plans to try and retain an edge. They are oftentimes very vocal in opposition, mostly because they feel they need to and because they don’t like change, but when they see the writing on the wall and legislation coming down the pipeline they can and do move very fast. Right now, there are a bunch of big oil companies in Canada kicking the tyres, waiting for the US administration to make a move, and when that happens they will jump aboard. But first, they want a formal agreement in place with definitive targets and a timeline for reductions in emissions…

PS: Tom, if you have journo credentials, please provide them at Deltoid. And Tim is still patiently waiting for you (or Mosh) to answer his question. Thanks.

Maple Leaf, you don’t get to define what BAU is or should be. You should note that the definition has changed over time. But when I say that what BAU really is in the real world is different from the accepted definition, you go to Dulltoid and tell them I am defending BAU. Cheap and sick–and typical.

Maple Leaf, you are a troll with a more fanciful style. You are a world-class liar with elegant phrasing. You lie about what you wrote and what happened at Deltoid. You did not defend me. You gossiped and joked with dhogaza after he called me a pimp and a lying sack of shit.

P.S. My journalistic credentials are published. If you and your fellow weirdos are too lazy or too stupid to find them, I don’t consider it my problem.

“You gossiped and joked with dhogaza after he called me a pimp and a lying sack of shit.”

Not true. I’m sorry if you feel wronged, but you are way off topic and way out of line and not stating the facts. You are desperately trying to make me guilty by association with what dhogaza wrote at #105. Those were his words, not mine.

Also, I wrote a post to dhogaza after he made his post #155. Now the post you quoted (#105) here at Bart’s place was made by dhogaza on 10 June 2010 (#105), the post I made at Deltoid last night was #156 on 14 June 2010– go and check the date and time stamps. Reality check, the two are not related, and you are trying to mislead people into thinking that they are.

Additionally, I did not joke or discuss with dhogaza about what he wrote about you at #105 or #155. I informed him of what was going on here and made some (deservedly) sarcastic comments. The only time I made reference to his post( #155) was when I said:

“For the record (re 155) , I condemn violence of any kind”.

So I did defend you, albeit implicitly, and in doing so also distanced myself from their inflammatory rhetoric. For what it is worth, I have made another post at Deltoid to clarify my position. People can go over there and read for themselves.

Re your journalism credentials. You told Ms. Haynes that you took majors in journalism and anthropology through the G.I. Bill, but said in an email (which is online for all to read at sourcewatch) but that you left without taking a degree in either of them. Now you said that Anna lied, but have still not provided evidence to the contrary. A search of Google has turned up nothing about you having formal/official credentials in journalism, although it was not an exhaustive search, no time. I did find you at journalisted.com, but no information about your credentials was provided. Your “Bio” at examiner.com does not list any credentials.

Now, if you want to take this further, please take it over to Deltoid.

The point is that the baseline or “BAU” represent the high emission scenarios such as A2 or, in which “Continued GHG emissions at or above current rates” (from IPCC, synthesis report, see link below), that is what I see happening if a globally a concerted effort is not made to reduce GHG emissions (so far we have failed to slow the increase in CO2 levels since international talks began in the nineties, that is conducting business outside a framework (BAU) to reduce CO2 levels has failed):

“All assessed stabilisation scenarios indicate that 60 to 80% of the reductions would come from energy supply and use and industrial processes, with energy efficiency playing a key role in many scenarios. Including non-CO2 and CO2 land-use and forestry mitigation options provides greater flexibility and cost-effectiveness. Low stabilisation levels require early investments and substantially more rapid diffusion and commercialisation of advanced low-emissions technologies. {5.5}

Without substantial investment flows and effective technology transfer, it may be difficult to achieve emission reduction at a significant scale. Mobilising financing of incremental costs of low-carbon technologies is important”

Bart, I did count to ten before submitting this. I think it’s important for people to know that there are a band of committed commenters that follow people like me and Steve Mosher around with the express purpose of disrupting blog threads. For over a year I have tried to look past their behaviour and tried to engage. No more. If you want me to abandon this thread, I will. But I am no longer going to give a free pass to people like dhogaza, Maple Leaf, Martin Vermeer and others who think they can trash talk me at Deltoid and pretend to be civilized elsewhere.

You, Lucia and Keith Kloor are talking about tribalism and norms of behaviour. Counting to ten, pretending these idiots aren’t there, none of that works. Facing people who do wrong is eventually what we have to do.

No, Maple Leaf, do you really think after what you and your soulmates did to me at Deltoid that I am going to engage there? Do you think after calling me a troll, a world class liar, a fraud and an opportunist, and after giggling about it with dhogaza, that I am going to engage with you on issues, provide you with information about myself, or submit to Anna Haynes’ stalking, just so you can all make more stuff up about me?

This is your gossipy exchange with dhogaza after he finished his orgiastic venting spree: “Dhogaza, You should read what Fuller and Mosher are saying over at Bart Verheggen’s place. Claiming that BAU is what will actually help us reduce emissions, not a global agreement. Yes, you did read that right.”

Don’t ask me for anything, Maple Leaf. Not the time of day.

I notice you went back to Deltoid and made a pious plea for people to tone it down after I started confronting you here. How sweet.

Long meal. While I think enviro-econ reasons are as or more compelling, immediate, and yielding better action than climate, they are not mine. My reason is we are the people we’ve been waiting for. It is also the technology we’ve been waiting for. As a kid, today’s technology was the stuff of semi-fanciful articles in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics.

This reason leads me to emphasizing a bottom up approach. It suggests questions. How many people does it take to change a light bulb? How many people does it take to produce a watt? Are we there yet?

The climate concerned will ask, “How can the ‘we are the people we’ve been waiting for’ reason be better than climate for reaching our goals?” One way is in the application of effort. A bottom up approach demands that individuals focus their effort on actual deployment of technology and efficiencies. Now, the climate concerned mostly focus on political action, an ultimately futile and fruitless endeavor.

This was an enjoyable thread until it got hi-jacked by pettiness. This “he-said she-said” stuff is painful and boring. Ironic that this is a post about climate discussions in the blogosphere, no?

IMHO, blogs on all sides of the debate may have something to contribute , but when it degenerates into name-calling and snickering it becomes irrelevant. As mspelto said above, the best place to learn science is from a scientist (especially those who are effective communicators, a la Bart!)

I continued this discussion here despite being able to transfer it to Deltoid for one primary reason.

We have been talking here and at Keith’s and Lucia’s about tribalism and have largely focused on the beliefs of blog owners. The major extent of conversation about commenters was about their anonymity.

I believe strongly that commenters have a much more important role in this process (and its various breakdowns) that we like to think (as bloggers, we want to be the drivers, right?)

Commenters can serve as gatekeepers, driving away unwanted visitors with hostile responses. They can serve as maintainers of community norms, nudging people into right methods of expressions and identifying taboos.

They also can serve as missionaries, venturing forth to defend their favorite bloggers and political positions. They also can serve as attack dogs, following enemies through the blogosphere.

I think any discussion of tribalism that doesn’t take this into account is going to leave us all frustrated.

Commenters are powerful. They like it. That’s why they do it–they can see they are having an effect.

Bart, I did count to ten before submitting this. I think it’s important for people to know that there are a band of committed commenters that follow people like me and Steve Mosher around with the express purpose of disrupting blog threads.

Perhaps you should have counted to a million. Your self-serving paranoia is factually erroneous — at the very least that is not their express purpose. But the evidence does not support that to be their purpose at all — certainly it is not adequate to support knowing it; and if that is their purpose, they aren’t very good at executing it, as their actual posts do not satisfy your characterization.
And you don’t provide any evidence, you merely assert that people should know this on your say-so. This is a rather common and cheap rhetorical ploy, and it serves as evidence by which people can know something tawdry about you … and it just gets worse in the rest of your post.

Marcel you might have mentioned that this evening you left 5 critical comments on different articles of mine and have criticised me today on several other blogs, if I recall correctly. Sort of proving my point, actually.

As far as I can recall I’ve never made a comment critical of Mr. Fuller so maybe he will be able to address my post…

I strongly agree with his assertion that “Commenters can serve as gatekeepers, driving away unwanted visitors with hostile responses.” And have frequently spoken out against the ‘attack dog’ mentality that often deraisl discussion (apparently in some quarters that makes me a ‘concern troll’ but hey-ho).

One of the drawbacks of the presence of ‘attack dogs’, or ‘gate keepers’ is that often commentors will use their presence to avoid answering more substantial critiscisms of their position – they may for example use tha fact that someone has made a negative comment about them elsewhere in order to avoid admitting to an error on their part or address questions brought up by more reasonable commenters.

So Tom, in the spirit of communication would you like to tell me (someone who has never attacked you personally) how your (and apparantly the ‘real world’s’) definition of BAU differs from the IPCC definition and, whilst you are about it how you feel your Climategate book helps to ‘bridge the divide’?

I think you made a mistake in carrying your personal vendettas with other commenters over to Bart’s site. It has made the thread rather unpleasant.

That said, you made an excellent observation on the power of commenters, which I agree is not appreciated enough. For example, the comment immediate after yours on this score is from Steve Bloom, who tells Paul Kelly:

“Generally you need to think things through more carefully before posting.”

This is about as least offensive as Steve can get, but as you can see, that kind of sneering smugness would rub anyone wrong, esp lurkers who might want to contribute but might not want to get summarily insulted.

Both the IPCC and Nicholas Stern failed to consider innovation in their estimates of mitigation technology and general development of society, the IPCC in their SRES and Stern in his report. The IPCC basically assumes we will be addressing environmental hazards in 50 years with the same tools we have today. Cut-throat innovation with a maniacal (and really exhausting) drive to get a faster, better and cheaper product/service to market before the next guy is the hallmark of business as usual. This is something that I periodically go on a rant about, so I’ll try and restrain myself to one example: There are 3,324 patents with the words ‘wind turbine’ in the title in Scirus.com, a compendium of several databases that include the major patent offices. Windmills have been around longer than patents and have been used commercially for hundreds of years. But of that total, 1,136 were filed since 2009.

That’s 34% of the total, and neither the IPCC nor Nicholas Stern have any way of accounting for any improvements that result, such as gearless transmissions that will make off-shore windfarms practical, as it reduces maintenance or improvements to short term wind forecasting to better predict capacity usage.

It’s completely counter to the real world experience of frantic, almost desperate innovation to get ahead or catch up that has shaped the modern world. That’s business as usual.

Sadly, bridging a divide, which is a laudable goal I share with our author, Lucia Liljegren and Keith Kloor, does not automatically fill in the chasm between differing sides–that’s why we use a bridge, not landfill equipment.

Our real goal for Climategate: The CRUtape Letters, was to memorialize a selection of the leaked emails as put into context by accounts of the events occurring when they were written, with the goal of preventing ‘alarmists’ (sorry) from claiming that they were taken out of context, were just ‘boys being boys’ or were in some other way insufficient for interested people to form an opinion of the behaviour of the scientists involved. We felt there was a slight possibility that some people would use those arguments to excuse what had happened, or to pretend it didn’t matter. Nah–couldn’t happen…

Our book says the following on page 8:

“We have taken sides in this analysis. Our critics will say that we took sides before we started, and although we are confident we have approached this objectively, there may be a little truth to that.
But—and it’s a big but—although we are harsh in our criticism of the actions of this group of climate scientists and paleoclimatologists known as The Team, readers need to understand two things:
1. Our criticism does not extend to criticism of the theory of global warming. Both your authors believe global warming exists, is a problem and needs to be addressed. We just don’t think it poses a catastrophic threat to civilization. We explain in detail below.
2. Our criticism should not be construed as criticism of the majority of scientists investigating our climate, its effects and possible changes to it in the future. We have communicated with a large number of climate scientists, and they are not at all like The Team in either attitude or behavior.
We are tough on the scientists we call The Team, and we think deservedly so. But we want to stress from the outset that we do not for one minute believe there is any evidence of a long-term conspiracy to defraud the public about global warming, by The Team or anyone else. What we find evidence of on a much smaller scale is a small group of scientists too close to each other, protecting themselves and their careers, and unintentionally having a dramatic, if unintended, effect on a global debate.”

Recent arguments by Brian Angliss at Scholars and Rogues sort of make our point pretty concisely. In two blog posts that criticize our book (peripherally–his main target seemed to be Steve McIntyre) he says that what we did can be ‘disproved’ without examination.

Angliss used a technique borrowed from a study of Microsoft programmers looking for a software bug to claim that we didn’t have enough emails in hand to provide a statistically significant sample of their work product for criticism. Which is of course poppycock, but it is really to counter people like Angliss that we decided to quote emails and what was being written at the same time as the emails.

Angliss did not read our book. He did not read McIntyre’s blog. He did not read the leaked emails. And yet he slams all three. Which is fine, I guess–it doesn’t appear that anyone is taking him seriously.

The real problem is that he is effectively saying that if you have a mathematical model that serves correctly, you don’t need to examine the data.

Both Steve Mosher and myself think that that is perniciously anti-scientific. It’s one of the reasons we wrote the book.

The management of reputational risk in the blogosphere is more of a goal than a set of procedures.

Standard practice is to confront misstatements or accusations in the same forum as they appear, as quickly as possible. Doing so in a comment thread diverts the discussion from the intended subject and usually drives away those interested in the original topic.

Ignoring these misstatements and accusations only stores up trouble for later, [edit]

Trolls do this intentionally, and for one or more reasons. They typically do it anonymously [edit].

Bloggers face a dilemma when confronted by a troll. Their natural instinct is to assume good faith and a willingness to engage. This makes us easy to ambush.

So, Keith, Bart and Lucia, as you plot through a strategy to bridge the divide, remember that commenters have their own agendas, strategies and goals. I’m not suggesting a conspiracy of trollers. But ad hoc comments like ‘X is going on over at Y’s website–can someone help me take him down’ are easy to find [edit].

My own strategy going forward is to continue to respond to trolls [edit], but to provide context on why I will not engage with them.

Angliss used a technique borrowed from a study of Microsoft programmers looking for a software bug to claim that we didn’t have enough emails in hand to provide a statistically significant sample of their work product for criticism. Which is of course poppycock

And, of course, you demonstrated that it’s “poppycock” by demonstrating that you don’t know the first thing about statistical sampling and statistical analysis.

Because you said:

Your argument that insufficient data is available for analysis is simply innumerate, and is essentially refuted every time a poll of 1,000 people is extrapolated to correctly predict an election. If you were to assume a total of 50 million emails involving the subjects of the controversy you would only need a sample of 666 emails to be able to make statistically significant statements at a 99% level of confidence with a confidence level of +/- 5%.

While in your book, you and Mosher make clear the fact that you do not believe that the published e-mails are a random sample of the entire set of e-mails that have gone through CRU.

My guess is that your statement is a result of a lack of understanding of statistical principles, not dishonesty. Though it’s interesting that you ignored the fact that your error was pointed out over at scholars and rogues.

Bart, you posted as I was writing, delete my post if you feel you must, but I’ve tried to stick to pointing out an error made by Fuller (one which was corrected in the S&R thread, which he has ignored, repeating it here).

If you were to assume a total of 50 million emails involving the subjects of the controversy you would only need a random sample of 666 emails to be able to make statistically significant statements at a 99% level of confidence with a confidence level of +/- 5%.

But still not sufficient. The sample must also be representative.

For instance, I live in SE Portland, OR, in a district that typically votes about 90% Democrat or Independent. If a random sample of Oregon happens to randomly choose a cluster of 666 people to poll that live in Portland, Oregon you’re not going to be able to make statistically significant statements about the state at large even though its population is only 3 million, rather than the 50 million you give in your example.

Pollsters have to guard against such things. This is one of many reason why skillful pollsters make decent money.

According to you and Mosher, the e-mails in question were mostly likely cherry-picked via keyword search, not selected randomly.

Fuller states “Angliss did not read our book. He did not read McIntyre’s blog. He did not read the leaked emails. And yet he slams all three.”

I cannot vouch whether or not Angliss has read the book in question, but it is very clear from his analysis that Angliss did in fact read the illegally obtained emails (some of them are even posted on his site). Angliss contacted McIntyre directly (see his blog) and Angliss noted on his blog that McIntyre directed him to threads at CA, so Angliss did spend time reading material at CA. Not only that, but Angliss went the extra mile and actually contacted some of the individuals involved in the email fiasco (Fuller and Mosher have not provided proof that they tried to contact the folks at CRU and have provided conflicting accounts as to whether or not the folks at CRU were indeed contacted). So Fuller, has yet again been caught misrepresenting the facts. Additionally, unlike Fuller and Mosher, Angliss did correct an error when it was pointed out to him.

Also, why Fuller continues to insist that the emails were “leaked” is beyond me. If he knows who leaked them, then I hope that he has informed the Norfolk police working on the case.

“Angliss did not read our book. He did not read McIntyre’s blog. He did not read the leaked emails. And yet he slams all three. Which is fine, I guess–it doesn’t appear that anyone is taking him seriously.

The real problem is that he is effectively saying that if you have a mathematical model that serves correctly, you don’t need to examine the data.”

“Our real goal for Climategate: The CRUtape Letters, was to memorialize a selection of the leaked emails as put into context by accounts of the events occurring when they were written, with the goal of preventing ‘alarmists’ (sorry) from claiming that they were taken out of context, were just ‘boys being boys’ or were in some other way insufficient for interested people to form an opinion of the behaviour of the scientists involved. ”

What Angliss’ analysis, the discussion over at Deltoid, RC, and elsewhere, and the analysis of independent inquiries shows, the context of the emails have certainly been distorted (Fuller would like to dismiss them all as “alarmists”).

Back to the premise. There are better reasons than climate. That doesn’t mean climate isn’t a reason. Climate is but one of many valid reasons to replace fossil. It is simply not the one that should dominate the action plan nor measure its success.

Changing the policy rationale does not change the goal. Changing the rationale improves the chances the goal will be reached. I understand I’m asking people to abandon long held beliefs.

Well, Keith, I’ve actually held my tongue for months despite dozens of similarly problematic comments by PK (mainly at Stoat). At some point somebody had to tell him he’s failing to carefully think through his comments prior to posting. It’s a problem he has in common with you, BTW.

Trying again, PK: Climate has to dominate the plan because it imposes the most stringent timeline. I agree that various factors other than climate point toward getting off fossil fuels, but none have the same urgency. Read (or re-read) the Copenhagen Diagnosis.

“Changing the rationale improves the chances the goal will be reached.” I know you think this is true, but continuing to repeat it without a supporting analysis (see my prior comments) is pointless. None of the other reasons even have a clear goal.

“Our real goal for Climategate: The CRUtape Letters, was to memorialize a selection of the leaked emails as put into context by accounts of the events occurring when they were written,”

A selection of a selection, with context from events, but not from the rest of the conversations involved. I won’t go in to the problems with this approach, that’s for elsewhere, I will note that I was recently privy to some emails ‘blaming’ someone for a recent disease outbreak due to him recently returning from a country where it was endemic and working in an area of science directly related to the disease vector – a joke of course, but taken out of context…

Tom is playing a rather clever game, as it is World Cup time I’ll use a football analogy: He is the tricky winger who, by presenting the ball briefly invites the foul before knocking the ball away, taking the hit & then writhing around in (simulated) agony – the David Suazo of the climate debate perhaps.

As anyone who has observed Tom’s interactions on various ‘alarmist’ blogs (Dulltoid (his aphorism), Michael Tobis’ site and elsewhere) will have noted, he is often abrasive, thus inviting insults from the looser cannons, before taking umbrage at any slights (often presenting a ‘selection’ on his examiner site – usually without context) and refusing further comment. This new tactic of refusing to interact with anyone who has ever previously insulted him is a master-stroke in this regard as he now no longer has to answer any question – he can just claim previous calumny, without feeling the need to provide citation (or context) to back up the claim – simply brilliant!

Changing the rational does not change the time line at all. I’ll let Steve decide what the time line should be. How’s in 2060 CO2 emissions are 20% of what they are today? I think we agree the only way to reach that goal is through replacing fossil fuel.

C02 is a symptom. Burning fossil fuel is the disease. Stop the burning and the CO2 takes care of itself. Therefore, action should be based on what best replaces or eliminates the need for fossil. Success should be measured by how much fossil use is reduced both as a percentage of the energy portfolio and in absolute terms. A subtle difference? Perhaps. One positive is it would put Lord Monckton types out of business in the blink of an eye.

Yes, there sure was a lot of urgency shown in Copenhagen among the jet planes, luxury hotels, fine dining and fleets of limousines.

Chris S, I am the one (and not the only one) who said that because the emails did not form a random sample that using a calculation of the percentage of total emails they form was so incorrect as not to be even wrong. I then showed that even if they were a random sample, there would be enough. Obviously, you would require far less for a segmented or targeted sample.

As for your characterisations of my behaviour on other sites, that’s your opinion. Not mine.

The thing is, Paul, that’s a recipe for disaster. I suggest you lose the snark and actually read the Copenhagen Diagnosis (a consensus document produced a year ago by the world’s leading climate scientists) to find out why. To my original point, it’s also arbitrary. If you want to push policy based on it, the first question you’ll have to answer is what the basis for the goal is. You won’t get far if you can’t explain why 20% by 2060 is the correct goal versus e.g. 30% by 2100.

“…and neither the IPCC nor Nicholas Stern have any way of accounting for any improvements that result, such as gearless transmissions that will make off-shore windfarms practical, as it reduces maintenance or improvements to short term wind forecasting to better predict capacity usage.”

I have nothing against taking good measures for other reasons, but, as I said at collide-a-scape in more detail, it risks not doing enough for the reason that is not part of the rationale. Purely taking no-regret measures is not going to be enough to prevent serious climatic consequences, esp in regards to the timescale of the problem, as I laid out in the previous post (big inertia in the energy system; the carbon cycle; and the climate system means that CO2 reduction has to start long before the worst consequences are visible that we want to keep in check).

CO2 emissions at 20% of what they are today by 2060 is pretty much the goal of currently proposed legislation. If that’s a recipe for disaster, your argument is with Waxman, Markey and Kerry, not me.

If you’d like to use the Copenhagen Diagnosis to define the goal, fine.
“More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-95% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.” It’s not much different than the one I suggested.

Of course, I’d put the goal in terms of fossil fuel replacement. Again from CD: “Studies have shown that attractive options for particularly rapid and cost-effective climate mitigation are the reduction of black carbon (soot) pollution and tropospheric low level ozone.”

The problem is that we are not now even taking full advantage of the available no-regret measures, distracted by the often nonsensical debate over the nuances of climate science. The top down approach, waiting for government imposed CO2 suppression has proven to be a formula for endless delay.

I think the dominance of the climate rationale puts us more at risk of not doing enough. If you ask “Should we as rapidly as possible replace fossil?” you’ll get a lot more yeses than if you ask “Do we have to stop global warming?”.

It’s also a matter of resource allocation. Recently the world met in Copenhagen, at a cost of well over $100 million and generating an enormous carbon footprint. What was accomplished beyond hey, let’s do this again in a couple of years? The money spent on this one conference could have deployed 25,000 solar water heating systems.

Are we talking about all the illegally obtained emails or those emails pertaining to his analysis on his blog? Of course he has read the emails pertaining to his analysis, and possibly more than you are aware of. I’m going to ask Angliss to clarify.

A few days ago he said that he’d read about 10% of them, concentrating on those pertinent to the points being discussed on his blog.

So, yes, he’s read those pertaining to his analysis, and yes, Tom Fuller knows that. I’m sure Tom meant to say “had not read all of the e-mails, just those pertaining to the discussion”. I certain of it :)

The money spent on this one conference could have deployed 25,000 solar water heating systems.

Straw man, false dichotomy style. There is nothing that makes the two things mutually exclusive. The world’s gross national income for 2008 was $69.7 trillion. More than enough of that is disposable income to finance quite a few international conferences and deploy a few million solar hot water systems plus a lot of solar electric arrays, wind farms, tidal and wave generators, geothermal exploration wells, etc.

The same applies to PK’s top down complaint. In fact what is necessary is a multi-level approach, involving international, national, provincial, local and individual commitments, across a wide variety of human enterprise from household economics to ag practices and ecosystem management to manufacturing and transportation to waste management to energy and cement production, and so on. There are a number of actors engaged in all these fields at all levels who are not idly waiting for international agreements, though eventually such will be extremely useful, if not entirely necessary, in integrating these efforts.

Straw man, indeed. It is an either or situation. The money wasted at Copenhagen came from limited government funds that are principally derived from taxes on the people.

Look at the complex structure you say is necessary for the top down approach. Isn’t the need for energy transformation urgent? The advantage of the bottom up approach is that it allows the individual to make a real difference and it starts solving the problem right now.

Here’s bottom up. You, me and as few as 500 other people, throwing in as little as $10 a month into installing solar hot water into Habitat for Humanity houses for a year would reduce CO2 emissions more over the next twenty years than the Copenhagen Conference.

Yes, I’ve read the emails pertaining to the specific issues that I addressed in my post (linked above by Mapleleaf). It’s always possible I missed a pertinent email or two, however, although I don’t believe that anyone has pointed out to me what the pertinent emails were and where I could find them (without reading large blocks of the emails first).

As I pointed out in discussion at S&R and CA, I had no specific targets in mind when I started the piece. I did think I had a line on a story that hadn’t been addressed in media or by blogs yet, but the nature of the story changed significantly as I researched it. And at this point, I have run a correction that McIntyre caught and pointed out on one post and a correction based on a misunderstanding and an erroneous judgment call of mine on the other post.

Well some, not Eli to be sure, have often remarked that people are perhaps not paranoid enough. A useful hypothesis, but not one that the Bunny would advance, is that Tom Fuller and/or Steve Mosher HAVE read the entire set of Emails, and, perhaps, but of course Eli would not ever suggest this, is that they helped make the selection. It might, although Eli would resist the thought, be said that the rapid appearance of their book might point to their having access to the Emails much before they were made public. Whatever.

And if you look at those pictures of the Watergate hotel closely enough you’ll see two figures lurking around with a bag full of Democratic secrets. With your super spy camera you’ll notice the initials from on our flawlessly tailored suits–TF and SM…

Actually Tom, all Eli has to do is cross the river and visit GMU to see the Singer gang. OTOH, and, of course, Eli is not pointing this out, you did not exactly deny anything, and of course, not denying anything and producing sworn statements means that any decent auditor knows that you are affirming.

You must have read the reaction to Brain’s BS on his blog. His ‘analysis’ is foolishness. Tom Fuller summed it up nicely:

“The thrust of your argument is anti-science–you don’t have to read McIntyre’s blog, the leaked emails or our book. I have no problem with that. You can even tell other people they don’t need to read it. But to hijack studies of dubious relevance and try to invent some jiggery-pokery formula saying that what you’re doing is a valid way of discovering the truth is ridiculous.”

Brian is quite the busy little researcher. He posted that he has read 10-15% of the emails. That should be enough to get a feel for the context. Anyway, Brian’s occasional misunderstandings and erroneous judgment calls can be corrected with help from those who have actually done a little research and thinking for themselves.

If Tom Fuller ever comes back here to be smeared by the usual suspects, he should admit that he was around 10-15% incorrect, when he stated that Ambliss had not read the emails.

Brian, so far you have the dubious distinction of having dreamed up the lamest and most obscure whitewash of the Climategate scandal.

So, and now some, not Eli, he hastens to add, will say that we have excellent auditor class evidence that Mosher and Fuller say 1200% of the Emails that were made public, and helped to decide which we were to see. Just saying.

It has been more than half a day since I posted two responses to your comment on Deltoid.

Neither of them have appeared.

Could you please tell me how, in what possible imaginable way, the right thing to do?

I never cursed, defamed, abused anyone in those two comments. I did not include any links or ‘spam’, the comments did not contain swear words.

I know you think we want to burn fossil fuels and fill up the world with CO2 etc etc, but this is something far more serious. Even if Lambert publishes my comments now – he has achieved his purpose – he has delayed discussion which could have taken place between me, any other commenters and my fellow warmers.

How can this happen? Is this what they do in Australia – suppress freedom of speaking and rational discourse? You’ve posted freely here, at Lucia’s blog. You *know* that you post abrasively – don’t your fellow skeptical commenters take it in their stride and try to argue the points behind your strong language?

Why do I not deserve the same?

There wasn’t even any strong language in my posts.

I am asking you because you come here implying that Tom Fuller is suppressing your comments.

I cannot believe what is being done, in this day, and on the Internet, where every sort of filth and worthless junk and spam floats around freely with not control.

Bart, Mr. Fuller seems to be missing the point. People should not have to ask or tell you to print a correction, it should be your conscience and professional work ethic telling you to print a correction or retract any erroneous statements. Period.

Fuller’s juvenile excuse that “you said something mean and horrible about me so I am absolved from having to do the right thing” is absolute nonsense and not at all professional.

It seems that Fuller’s partner in this charade, Mosh,has also been shown to be telling fibs by Arthur Smith. These facts make it very difficult to engage so-called “skeptics” in good faith Bart. Trying to do so is honorable and the right thing to do, but at the end of the day, and for the most part, ‘skeptics’ typically have no intention in engaging in good faith. The public record on that aspect could not be more clear.

People lamenting here about “censorship” should note what someone has done to Tamino. Shub has also run into trouble at DeepClimate. It is not surprising that people are reluctant to entertain Shub’s diatribes on their blogs when he is on the record claiming that:

“Lastly, NOBODY is going to die because of climate change.”

Angliss read the emails which were of direct relevance to a very specific allegation made by McIntyre and Mosh, from Deltoid:

“Steve Mosher and Steve McIntyre have alleged that the stolen CRU emails prove that Keith Briffa had violated IPCC rules in when working on the 4th Assessment Report”

So Angliss obviously did not have to read all the emails to investigate that specific point. Angliss also took the trouble to speak with Overpeck. Mosh and Fuller have been unable/unwilling to prove that they contacted CRU folks or others involved to get their side of the story, and have offered contradictory explanations on that point.

DeepClimate should be grateful that no one has picked up on his embarrassing overstatement of Lawrence Solomon’s stumblings, which triggered a conscience attack in the original author Mike Hulme himself.

How many times will DeepClimate be in the same position?

Maple, why dont you read Hulme’s letters and paper directly? Maybe then my questions to DeepClimate will make sense.

Hulme has to carry some of the blame for this. His ambiguous writings make for great fodder for contrarians and the likes of Solomon. Hulme even admitted on his site that what he wrote was unclear.

Now I happen to not agree with some of what Hulme says, but Solomon certainly spun this to feed the ‘skeptics’, and that is what I and many others have a problem with. And FYI, I did read Hulme’s proof as well as his clarifications, but you seem to be using some rather interesting lenses to interpret the text. You should also do a background check on Solomon– he has quite list of questionable musings at the uber right-wing paper the National Post which is being sued for libel. Maybe Solomon is doing his best to get sued ;)

DC was not the only one who picked up on Solomon distorting Hulme’s words and using it as fodder for the ‘”skeptics”. And you were doing some fancy footwork to try and explain yourself there. Anyhow, even the infamous Morano took remedial action once he realized that Solomon was out to lunch. So your position on this is puzzling.

How you can continue to defend the likes of Solomon is beyond me. Anyhow, I am not going to engage you more on this topic. So I’ll let you have the last word.

Actually, treating people acting in bad faith as if they were not is not the right thing to do … it’s like trying to continue to play rule-abiding chess with someone who doesn’t obey the rules. When people are acting in bad faith, the right thing to do is to call them out and to refuse to continue the exchange unless or until they return to honest debate, such as laid out at http://evolvingthoughts.net/2009/06/06/a-code-of-conduct-for-effective-rational-discussion/

It should be noted that much that looks like bad faith is actually intellectual incompetence. For instance, Tom Fuller wrote

“I think it’s important for people to know that there are a band of committed commenters that follow people like me and Steve Mosher around with the express purpose of disrupting blog threads. ”

I noted in response

“Your self-serving paranoia is factually erroneous — at the very least that is not their express purpose. But the evidence does not support that to be their purpose at all — certainly it is not adequate to support knowing it; and if that is their purpose, they aren’t very good at executing it, as their actual posts do not satisfy your characterization.”

to which Fuller responded

“Marcel you might have mentioned that this evening you left 5 critical comments on different articles of mine and have criticised me today on several other blogs, if I recall correctly. Sort of proving my point, actually.”

i crosspost this here and on deltoid. i am sorry for having caused some confusion, and derailed the topic.

i wrote my first post over on Tom Fuller’s site, after a long time.

in contrast to Tom, i don t assume a conspiracy whenever one of my comments doesn t show up. i think it was just a technical problem. but i din t want to lose the post, nor spam it, constantly, as the examiner software is prone to cause double posts.

i had this blog open and did notice that Tom was the last poster. i reposted (part of) the text via copy paste, just changed the first sentence from a comment on the backlist to an address to Tom and my opinion that this is a good example of what Bart was talking about under this topic.
i tried to repost the comment on Tom Fuller’s blog when i left the computer a little later. it worked.

that the comment and Fuller’s reply are gone now, is caused by a completely different aspect of the examiner blog.
the “next” and “previous” buttons at the bottom are not really working. so comments vanish automatically over time. this makes it pretty futile to write comments there and has been the case for a couple of months now. it also has caused a lot f confusion in the past.

so i don t think that Tom Fuller removed my post. it just vanished.

on the other hand, this vanishing posts are a big advantage to Fuller. as you can see in recent topics, people constantly point out obvious errors to him. (here for example, that the paper doesn t contain any list of scientists)
in all but one example that i witnessed (he had made false claims about Oreskes and Peiser’s critisism of her work) he denied to make a correction to his false claims.

Maple:
And you were doing some fancy footwork to try and explain yourself
there.

Like I said, I do not have control over how my posts are read or understood.

Let me repeat what I told DC – please try the same exercise yourself.

Hulme made two statements – one, in his paper and the second, in his ‘letter’ (the second one) about the consensus issue. Is that correct?

Read the statements and decide/tell me whether you agree with those statements. ‘Cause if you do not agree with what he says, your primary issue is with Hulme, not with what other observers make of it.

Sorry , but your comprehension skills are lacking. I said “How you can continue to defend the likes of Solomon is beyond me. Anyhow, I am not going to engage you more on this topic. So I’ll let you have the last word.”

I did not say now go ahead and ask questions at will and distort more (e.g., suggesting I somehow had to do some fancy footwork, I encourage people to read the thread).

My attempts to avoid the fake contentiousness that Internet anonymity can create resulted in cyberstalking and considerable personal stress because of the same – and due to a couple of “skeptics” that didn’t care for my views.

I won’t make that mistake again. Honesty isn’t rewarded by “skeptics” – it’s viewed as a weakness and admission of failure, to be exploited, preferably to the point of personal and professional embarrassment (and worse).

Too many “skeptics” hit below the belt and play dirty – which is reprehensible considering how they claim honest scientists act. I’ve found that they are merely projecting their moral shortcomings.

Derecho64 has it right. “skeptics” are the sort of people who see these things as a team sport, and are determined to have their “side” win. Facts, evidence, and logic are seen by them not as things to respect in their own right, following them wherever they may lead, but rather as weapons to be employed selectively so as to gain team advantage. Admitting an error is not something to be done by their “side” unless it can be employed to some strategic advantage, and when done by the other “side” it is not honored as as part of an honest seeking of truth but rather is used to attack credibility.

Unfortunately, many people of good will are unable to imagine such a lack of scruples and treat these people as though they were operating in good faith.